


A Glance in the Life

by Ickleroonilwazlib



Category: The 100
Genre: Character death but not really cause obv they're still alive in the show, F/M, I Don't Even Know, who died anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ickleroonilwazlib/pseuds/Ickleroonilwazlib
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>3 super short one-shots</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Glance in the Life

“This is ridiculously complicated.”

Octavia snorts at the comment but doesn’t reply. The feeling of his hands in her hair is too good, even if he is hopelessly tangling her hair. She feels one braid come loose, her scalp tingling with relief, and he starts the other side. It was by pure luck that they found this natural hot spring as they made camp near by. Lincoln had seen it, during the small skirmish with unfriendlies, and had suggested it when Octavia growled out her frustration of smelling worse than Bellamy’s week old socks.

He managed to free all her hair from their confinements and started untangling it as gently as he could. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the ministrations of her lover behind her and not the needles of pain shooting up her arm, now conveniently perched on its sling.

It wasn’t broken, Clarke reassured her, but there may have been a hairline fracture somewhere in there. With no real technology out here in the woods she couldn’t tell for sure and so the arm, now with splotches of black and blue, was confined to its makeshift sling.

Lincoln places all her hair over one shoulder and kisses the other one, his lips cracked and dry from the battle but welcomed nonetheless. He moves in front of her, to relieve her of her boots and socks, his chest already bare and gleaming in the light of the moon. Octavia pokes his chest with her toes, laughing at his annoyed swats but quickly hisses with pain when the motion jostles her arm. He instantly sobers up, his hand coming to her face, concern sketched into the lines of his face.

“Stop looking like I’m going to die,” she rolls her eyes at him, using her good hand to take his and leading it to the button of her pants. He continues to undress her but the worry is still there, furrowed in his brow, so Octavia does the only thing she knows how to do and rubs her thumb on the offending spot until the muscles relax.

Once they’re both naked, they sink into the warm water, and she instantly feels all the knots in her muscles come undone. Her sigh bounces off the tall trees, undiluted relaxation settling into her being. The smile she throws him is dazzling and she looks very much like the sort of goddesses he’s read about in the scattered pages of old books. He had never been a deeply religious man but her presence certainly installs in him a sense of devotion.

Octavia shakes her hair at him, laughing and he gets the hint. He’s bought a little bulb of a flower with him, one that smells like the beginnings of Spring, and starts rubbing it into her hair. The bulb secretes its oils and lathers exceptionally well, enough to wash her entire hair in one go. It’s a new discovery of Nyko after he became exasperated with the lyme soap which left his hair feeling worse than before and suddenly he’s become the most beloved of all the Tri Kru overnight. Simple toiletry tends to do that to people who spent most of their time covered in some form of earth.

They both realize what this all means. For the Tri Kru, washing somebody else’s hair wasn’t just a nice gesture. It was a very intimate gesture. Parents do it for their children, sisters to their brothers, and lovers to each other. She’s quiet as he continues to massage her scalp, enjoying the pressure he puts in certain spots, hard enough to send an enjoyable tingle down her spine. She wishes she could do the same for him–even if he didn’t have any hair, she could at least wash the rest of his body. Her arm, however, made sure none of that was possible.

“Maybe you could grow some hair,” she mumbles absentmindedly, the words leaving her mouth before her brain can catch up. There’s a pause—and then he laughs loudly, the sound coming from deep in his belly. Octavia unconsciously smiles as well, though a very sheepish one.

“I don’t really like braids,” he says, mirth shining in his eyes as he starts pouring water on her head with a small bowl, careful to shield her eyes. Bubbles trail down the sides of her face, tickling her, the smell extremely pleasant.

“Not on me anyway,” he adds as an afterthought, finishing up. There’s something about his laugh that makes her feel lightheaded; they really don’t have too many moments like this. They are little blessings between the horrors they face but at least, Octavia often tells herself, they are horrors they face together. She’s long realized all she needs in this life is a sword in one hand and his hand in the other.

She turns to face him, lifting her face to his and drops a chaste kiss to his lips.

“I can always braid your beard,” she whispers, nuzzling his nose. He smells like the Earth after the seasonal rains, musky and sweet. He grimaces at the thought but she knows he could never deny her anything. He nuzzles her back.

“Maybe one.”

—-++—-

He's etched his touch all over her body…

There are large scars on the palm of both of his hands. Not faint, or neat, or particularly pretty. His right bore the biggest one and sometimes his brow would furrow in pain when he tried to grip something or he’d suddenly complain about numbness of his fingers. But those times were rare and few in between so he never paid too much attention to it. Octavia on the other hand, memorized every time she saw him massaging his palms or flexing feeling back to his right fingers. She’d never forget the reason why the phantom aching would hurt him–not ever.

At the moment, his fingers were moving out of their own volition, whatever dreams were passing through his mind making the digits drum against the side of her arm. She turned her head to look at her lover sleeping on his stomach, half his face smashed into the shared pillow, a heavy arm thrown across her chest. With a smile, she takes his hand in hers and kisses the palm, the wrist, the long fingers, and finally takes his index into her mouth, efficiently waking him up.

His thumb run across her lower lip, callouses scratching the sensitive skin. He’s etched his touch all over her body…

—-++—-

Lincoln’s face is growing hazy from the tears. He’s trying to say something but the words aren’t coming out. Octavia’s hand stretches to his face, to shush him, so that he could conserve his energy and continue fighting but she wishes she hadn’t touched him. Bright red streaks now stain his face. He’s fading fast and there’s nothing in the world that could stop it. She feels the wet trails her tears leave behind, cleaning the muck and blood from her face, the sadness lodged into a lump in her throat.

No longer would she see his handsome face, she realizes, or feel his touch on her skin; the life they had dared to plan together was now trickling out of their hands. He’s shushing her tears, comforting her, as if to a child. Lincoln would soon be in a place she could not follow. That awful rattling sound echoes in her ears. The sound of death. It would be here soon.

Octavia feels him shiver against her, gasping out her name in the most heartbreaking way. She hopes he won’t suffer anymore. God, she hopes he knows how much he’s meant to her. She wants him to know that. Before he leaves her. Or is it before she leaves him?

Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the world. The words are caught somewhere in her throat, her breath now coming in short, gasping bursts but she persists. She wants this to be the last thing he hear (the last thing she says), not the sounds of death. She wants him to know how much she lov---


End file.
